1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable radiographic image capture device, an image capture controller, and a radiographic image capture system that can perform wireless communication and wired communication.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a radiation detector such as a flat panel detector (FPD) has been put into practical use in which a radiation-sensitive layer is disposed on a thin film transistor (TFT) active matrix substrate and which thus can directly convert radiation into digital data. A portable radiographic image capture device (hereinafter, also referred to as an “electronic cassette”) has been put into practical use which generates by the FPD image information (data) indicating a radiographic image representing applied radiation and which stores the generated image data.
Examples of the electronic cassette include not only an electronic cassette that can perform wired communication by connecting via a cable to an image capture controller (so-called a console), which controls capture of a radiographic image, but also an electronic cassette that can perform wireless communication. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2005-6979 discloses a technology of such a electronic cassette that can perform both wired and wireless communication, in which the communication mode is switched by connection and disconnection of a cable.
According to the technology disclosed in JP-A No. 2005-6979, in a case in which a cable is connected to a body of the electronic cassette, a wired communication is initiated. In a case in which the cable is not connected to the body of the electronic cassette, a wireless communication is initiated. However, a hospital may have many radiographic image capture rooms, and each image capture room may be equipped with many electronic cassettes. Further, since the electronic cassettes are portable, the electronic cassettes may be carried to various radiographic image capture rooms and used in any of the rooms.
Under this situation, in a case in which one communication base station is provided for each of radiographic image capture rooms where the radiographic image capture system is disposed and a wireless communication is performed based on a wireless communication configuration such as an extended service set identifier (ESSID) or a channel which is uniquely set for each of the radiographic image capture rooms (each communication base station), following situation may occur. If the electronic cassette is not moved between the radiographic image capture rooms, a radiographic image can be captured without causing any trouble, using the electronic cassette having the wireless communication configuration information (data) corresponding to each of the radiographic image capture rooms. However, if the electronic cassette (electronic cassette S) of a radiographic image capture room (image capture room A) is moved to another radiographic image capture room (image capture room B), and thereafter an operator (user) mistakenly selects the electronic cassette S that is does not exist in the image capture room A as an electronic cassette to be used for capture in the image capture room A, under a situation in which electric waves can be received in both of the image capture room A and the image capture room B, if the wireless communication configuration of the electronic cassette S is not changed, the electronic cassette S that has been moved to and thus existing in the image capture room B may be controlled through the wireless communication by the console of the image capture room A from which the electronic cassette S has been moved. This situation causes erroneous image capture and thus requires recapturing, which results in causing a subject to be unnecessarily exposed to the radiation. Meanwhile, in the image capture room B where the electronic cassette S is moved, the electronic cassette S cannot be selected as an electronic cassette that can be used for image capture.
Under a situation in which the electric waves cannot be received in the image capture room A and the image capture room B, the electronic cassette S that has been moved to the image capture room B cannot be selected and used in both the image capture room A and the image capture room B.
The technology disclosed in JP-A No. 2005-6979 does not considers the case in which the electronic cassette is moved between different image capture rooms and thus cannot resolve the above situation. Although a user may manually set the wireless communication configuration when an electronic cassette is moved to another radiographic image capture room, this is very troublesome and a setting error may occur at the time of the manual setting. For example, if wireless communication configuration data that is not used in any of the image capture rooms is set to an electronic cassette, communication with the electronic cassette cannot be performed in any of the image capture rooms. If an electronic cassette is set with wireless communication configuration data for a different image capture room from an image capture room to which the electronic cassette has been moved, the electronic cassette responds to an image capture request from the different image capture room and thus an image capture error may be occur in the different image capture room. In addition, the electronic cassette cannot be used for image capture in the image capture room to which the electronic cassette has been moved.